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COMING SOON: GE-FREE WORLD!
Ban Terminator Campaign | Via Campesina | Slow Food Movement
American and Canadian efforts to rid their communities of GE crops and to support biodiversity, local farmers and economies are part of a bigger international movement. Around the world, there are about 4,500 GE-free zones or campaigns, and much of Europe is already a GE-free zone with more than 100 regions and 3,500 localities qualifying. In Australia, several states have banned or are in the process of banning GE crops.
The Ban Terminator Campaign
The Ban Terminator Campaign seeks to promote government bans on terminator technology at the national and international levels, and supports the efforts of civil society, farmers, indigenous peoples and social movements who campaign against it. Terminator technology refers to plants that have been genetically modified to render seeds sterile after harvest (also called "suicide seeds"), preventing farmers from saving and re-planting them.
Announced on October 25, new patents have been granted in both Canada and Europe for a terminator technology owned jointly by US seed corporation Delta & Pine Land, and the United States Department of Agriculture. There have already been attempts to overturn an international de facto moratorium on terminator technology. Governments will be sending a delegation to the 8th Conference of the Parties (COP8) to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, March 20-31, 2006, in Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil, where the future of Terminator will be discussed. You can help ensure that this meeting takes steps to ban it once and for all!
For more information, please visit www.banterminator.org
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Via Campesina
The Via Campesina is an international movement that coordinates movements and organizations of peasants, small and medium-sized producers, small craft workers, indigenous communities and agricultural workers. It is an autonomous, pluralist movement, independent of any type of affiliation that defends the basic interests of these sectors.
Via Campesina delegates gathered in Geneva this past October to prepare their action plan for the WTO ministerial in Hong Kong. They believe food sovereignty is an essential right and campaign to reform the WTO's disastrous agricultural policies. The voice of farmers and rural workers from around the world, Via Campesina is fighting to stop the dumping of subsidized agricultural products by rich nations, and for food and agriculture free from genetically modified organisms.
For more information, please visit viacampesina.org
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Slow Food Movement
Founded in Italy in 1986, Slow Food is an international association that promotes food and wine culture, but also defends food and agricultural biodiversity worldwide. Slow Food has grown to 83,000 members with offices worldwide. Slow Food USA and Slow Food Canada have been big supporters of The Future of Food, speaking at film openings, hosting screenings and helping to spread the word about the film.
Slow Food organizes national and international events to further its cause. Slow Food's most recent and innovative initiative was Terra Madre, World Meeting of Food Communities, held in Turin in October 2004. It was a forum for all those who seek to grow, raise, catch, create, distribute and promote food in ways that respect the environment, defend human dignity and protect the health of consumers.
For more information, please visit www.slowfood.com
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